Getting boards on board with quality and patient safety

Following the success of their 100, 000 lives campaign, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in the USA has set the ambitious goal of trying to protect 5 million patients from “incidents of medical harm” during 2007 and 2008. One of the non-clinical objectives of the campaign is to “Get boards on board by defining and spreading the bestknown leveraged processes for hospital boards of directors, so they can become far more effective in accelerating organizational progress toward safe care.” Two specific board performance indicators have been defined:

Boards in all hospitals will spend at least
25% of their meeting time on quality and
safety issues.

Boards will have a conversation with at
least one patient (or family member of a
patient) who sustained serious harm at their
institution within the last year.